But the fact remains that when we put our money into technological innovation in this country, we are able to achieve at a pretty rapid pace…If the money and the motivation were there, I don’t think it’s wrong or ignorant of me to say that we could be taking potentially massive strides in clean energy technology.
I am going to apologize up front if this is too self-referential for some people’s tastes.
Right now, I am two parts confused, one part troubled and (I’ll admit it) one part amused regarding the flak we at Breakthrough Generation have been drawing the past few days on ItsGettingHotInHere and the conversations it has sparked and mood it has set in the office. I don’t think any of us are any less determined to advance a mission we see as essential, but how we do so and what that means has been the cause of some serious discussion.
The smart and passionate people I work with are working through some serious inner turmoil over the direction the movement represented on IGHIH is headed. I have come to question whether this movement is even capable of seriously advancing an agenda of clean energy, global prosperity and just and equitable social change. My new friend and BTG summer fellow Helen Aki posted a serious, thoughtful and questioning post on IGHIH hoping to explain where we are coming from, and where we would like a place on the quilted mosaic of the youth climate/energy movement, and thus far she has been met largely with bitterness and a refusal to recognize even the goodness of our intentions. Yes, we have been criticized for our style, but also for content and beliefs that are projected upon us and that we do not hold.
I can’t get over the following contradiction: the fact that cap and trade or any attempt to commoditize carbon is just about the most market purist, market fundamental, approach to solving carbon change there is and being called a neo-liberal market enthusiast when calling for aggressive public investment in clean and less carbon intensive technologies. I feel this all the more so when I posted last week about how we should all be looking at the market as a means and not as an ends of history.
We here at the Breakthrough Generation have been accused of believing “some future ‘Breakthrough’ technology will magically solve the climate crisis”. I don’t think any one of us holds that belief, and neither does anyone at Breakthrough. But the fact remains that when we put our money into technological innovation in this country, we are able to achieve at a pretty rapid pace. IPods haven’t exactly been getting bigger over the years. If the money and the motivation were there, I don’t think it’s wrong or ignorant of me to say that we could be taking potentially massive strides in clean energy technology.
There is an American story to be told about our most unique and dependable characteristic– our ability to get shit done when the will exists. When presented with a crisis or threatening event, we have in this nation been able to look ourselves in the mirror, breathe deep, acknowledge any fear we might have and get shit done. Our behavior and actions during World War II even while carrying the black mark of internment are an example of this. Roosevelt told us to acknowledge our fear and then used that American characteristic of “can and will do” spirit, and suddenly our factories were on the war regimen, kids were enlisting in droves, and fighting fascism was the top American priority.
An even better example comes to mind. Sputnik, the first Russian satellite launched in 1957. Suddenly America was scared of attacks from above, mechanical spies in the air, and Russian controlled skies. Yet, within twelve years, and due John F Kennedy’s motivational appeal to the same American values and “can and will do” spirit, we had put a man on the moon. Possibly even more incredible is the fact that Americans went from achieving human flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903 to landing on the moon in less than 70 years. In America, it really is true that where there is a will, there is a way.
History has shown that given the opportunity, America will cowboy up and rise to the occasion. Let’s make it happen and unleash the creative, determined spirit.
